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Zach just gave him a weak but triumphant grin, waiting until Gaius was a couple feet up before gripping both sides of the ladder, even digging his claws in a little bit. He placed his feet in front of the ends as well, so that the ladder would have a harder time sliding without him noticing. Every step Gaius was taking made it shake a little, which didn't bode well when he himself tried getting out.

"Hurry it up!" he called up the ladder, not aware of how delicate of a procedure it was climbing. The way the other guy moved made it appear easy. His mouth was really dry now. He didn't think he'd had anything to drink since... well... it had to have been a while. He couldn't quite pinpoint what he'd been doing before he'd ended up in this annoying team-building exercise.

He peered upward. Gaius was out of the reach of the door? It was hopeless. Utterly hopeless! His frill flared as he watched Gaius come down.

The whole of the situation was getting him really irritable. He snorted, offering a sarcastic idea as he slowly walked toward one of the corners of the room. None of the realistic ones were possible with the stuff they had at their disposal. "Well, so much for that. We may as well just tie some rope to a piece of wood and toss that around. Grappling hook on a budget. Face it, we're stuck! I don't think we can take this stupid thing down without breaking it in half or something."

By then, Zach was already leaning against the wall in the corner and sulking, tail barely moving. Already he wanted to just take the hammer away from Gaius and throw it across the room or something rather than having to hear all that noise. He looked up slightly when Gaius hoisted up his two pieces of wood, gave him a blank stare, and then a dissatisfied frown. "Great. Wonderful. What'll it do after that?"

"Does it really?" he asked again once Gaius's voice had died down, his own voice a bit scathing. "If you want my opinion - though I doubt you do - I think it's a-"

It was probably lucky for both of them that he was cut off, as what he had to say about Gaius and his newly made contraption was far from constructive. He covered his eyes with a hand and his head fell forward. "You have got to be kidding me."

From his position against the wall he watched, pursing his lips. He wasn't bothered by the hunger, but the strain of their efforts building and lifting up the ladder had made him a little dehydrated. At no point did he make any contributions to Gaius's efforts, merely staring down as Gaius made his demonstration. He was completely disinterested by the whole thing, mainly because he had no confidence in Gaius's idea. It didn't make a whole lot of sense.

The finished product was, admittedly, nothing special. Two pieces of wood and a rope full of knots? It wasn't really a ladder outside of a high school gymnasium. Once again, he figured they'd have better luck just waiting around rather than trying to escape in such a dangerous fashion.

"Looks heavy," he noted, having watched how Gaius moved around with it. Zach followed his gaze downward and behind himself, eventually figuring out that Gaius was referring to his tail. It stopped moving immediately save for the tip, which curled. He looked back up again sharply, narrowing his eyes. It wasn't too difficult to guess what he was getting at. "It's... not very dexterous. At all. It's just a tail."

Zach gave a grunt of annoyance, lost for what he could say to deter Gaius. He hadn't wanted to climb that ladder before, and he certainly didn't now. The wood and rope invention was somewhat heavy, but not impossibly so. Quickly, silently, he weighed his options. Refuse outright and he'd be stuck down here for what could be an awfully long time - Sabin wasn't happy, and Zach already had an idea of what that could mean. On the other hand, he could climb the damn ladder with the damn sticks, put it in the door, and get out as quickly as possible, barring death by falling.

It was hard to say which would end up worse, so he decided to roll with it and hope that his balance wouldn't fail him. He hefted the T-shaped sticks and trudged over to the ladder, wordless in his defeat. The wooden invention was placed down with the horizontal sticks at the top, and as slowly as he could manage he slipped his tail around underneath it once, twice, so that it was secure in the obviously fingerless grasp. It felt really odd to be holding something, especially something heavy, in a limb that for the better part of his life never existed.

He gave Gaius one last acidic glance before he placed one tough, bare foot onto the first rung and began the arduous ascent. The first couple of steps were easy. His tail lifted off the ground with him, taking the makeshift little ladder with him. He was momentarily surprised by the weight of it, not used to carrying things in his tail. He recovered quickly enough and kept going, foot after foot, until he was at about the middle of the ladder. The unsettling creaking and other assorted sounds of the ladder vocalizing its pain were not helping him concentate. How was Gaius doing holding the ladder steady? Only one way to find out. He looked down. It was a huge mistake.

The ground was about fourteen dizzying feet away from him. It was there, visible, and he was climbing a rickety ladder with no harness or ropes or anything that could save him from a fall. And what did falls mean for him? Best not to answer that, he reasoned, suddenly flattening himself as best he could against the ladder. He couldn't move. Not up, for that would only put him farther from the beloved solid ground that he wished he hadn't left. Down was too difficult, as he didn't want to lose his footing. His muscles simply locked, leaving him stranded and even shaking. Gaius's rope ladder wobbled a little in his grasp until his tail, too, had sought safety in leaning the object against a lower rung. The rungs he did have a grip on were making a few choice noises that should have kept him going. He just... couldn't. His fear of heights was worse than he recalled.

"I..." He swallowed, squeezing his eyes shut as he curved his head inward to rest his forehead against one of the rungs, feeling sick. "I'm stuck."

"No," he answered dejectedly, not having noticed his voice had lost its intensity. This was incredibly awkward. There was nothing he could say that wouldn't reveal to Gaius how much of a coward he was over such simple things. He'd try, though. "I can't... keep going. I need to come down.... Please," he implored, as though he needed permission to escape the spot.

He wanted Gaius to understand how difficult this was for him, but at the same time he knew he wouldn't. As much as Zach went off telling people that he lost his arm, he never mentioned the details of the circumstances. Thus, the predicament he was in now seemed to have been unavoidable. He felt too weak to try to conquer his fears with someone he hated bearing witness. His wings folded as best they could. He was still clinging hopelessly to the rungs until his claws started to dig in, and the ladder creaked again. He didn't want to die...